AbstractThis thesis analyzes the Russian Foreign Policy Doctrine from a broad theoretical perspective, with the aim of describing and explaining the doctrine using a number of theoretical approaches. Russia's foreign policy has undergone substantial changes since Vladimir Putin became president in the year 2000, involving a radical shift in foreign policy objectives and thereby moving away from the more confrontational and distrusting policies which characterized the Boris Jeltsin regime. Putins doctrine, based on pragmatism and seeking partnership and collaboration with the West, can be described as a near revolutionary re-orientation of Russia's foreign policy guidelines, meaning a transformation of the country's self image which implies a rejection of great power status and a search for a new role in the international community.Our thesis has examined explanatory variables such as the domestic political situation in Russia, the contemporary international system and President Vladimir Putins system of beliefs in order to describe and explain the doctrine. Our results show that the doctrine is largely a product of Putins personality, values and beliefs, but also to a large extent a consequence of necessities, namely the poor Russian economy and the fact that the country no longer can withstand an all out conflict with the West involving an excessive arms race.Keywords: Vladimir Putin, pragmatism, realism, domestic politics, radical change..

This thesis seeks to investigate how an agreed written form requirement is met in an electronic environment. Swedish Contract law is applied since Sweden lack specific regulation for electronically closed agreements. Since contractual freedom prevails in Swedish law, it is up to the parties themselves to decide if the formal requirements to be applied.In order to assess whether the written requirement is fulfilled in the electronic environment, a purpose-oriented analysis should be made. When the purpose of why a written form requirement applies has been clarified, the analysis continues to assess whether the objective can be achieved with the modern form of communication. The method is called functional equivalence and means that when an electronic media fulfill the same functions as the paper medium so will the electronic medium as a starting point to give the same legal effect as if it were the case of a written paper document.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how representations of identity construction are performed through the characters in the novel Snabba Cash by author Jens Lapidus. I examine what means the characters are using, and how the identity construction processes are related to the idea of modern society. For a theoretical background I use sociologist Anthony Giddens? theories regarding modernity and self-identity, to study general identity construction.

Purpose: The purpose is to examine more closely why the achievement of the environmental goals is so low. To within the thesis work to make this as interesting and with as good quality as possible, especially the environmental quality goal Reduced climate impact, but also Natural acidification and Protective ozone layer, has been chosen to be studied further. Method: A qualitative method and text analysis has been applied. Intervention theory, as Vedung 2009 describes, is used as an intellectual backbone and as a help to structure the essay. The three environmental quality goals correspond cases, or units of analysis. Analysis: The fulfillment of the respective environmental quality goals is analyzed according to its goal, policy instruments, implementation and its effects. To this some of the problems are analyzed that exist on the path to achieve the goals.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how gender is constructed in presentence reports written by social workers? as mandated by 11§ LUL. Young offenders are often assigned normative masculine or feminine attributes by personnel at treatment centers, girls are considered emotional and in need of support while boys are considered disorderly and in need of structure. Young female delinquents are victimized which affects their culpability; they are less likely to be held responsible for the crimes they committed. Young male delinquents are viewed as aggressive and in control; they are more likely to be held accountable for their criminal actions.

Infringement of intellectual property rights often causes significant economic damage. The problem with illegal activity concerning counterfeiting is constantly increasing. The development has lead to constitute an extensive international activity which is harmful for intellectual propery owners, consumers and the society in general. Competing products tend to be increasingly similar to each other, with rather similar marketing-, sales-, and pricingstrategies. As a result, the trademark strongly affects consumers? selection-process during purchase.

This paper develops a theory for understanding negotiation situations involving states and indigenous peoples. Using relevant constructivist theory as a starting point, the paper develops a theory about understanding the relationship between power and culture implicit in the concept of the state. This relationship is examined in negotiations situations involving states and indigenous peoples. States are constituted by social structure and are representatives of the national culture. At the same time states are actors within the international system and a part of the culture of Westphalia.

The purpose of this thesis was to study Holmen?s possible future ownership, concerning their forestland in Sweden. We have compared the strategy of the present owning of forests with three different alternatives. These three alternatives are: 1) selling all the forestland, 2) establish a new company which owns the forest where Holmen is the major stockholder and finally 3) an alternative were the two northerly regions are sold. We used Holmen?s annual account from the year 2002 as a bare year and made a reconstruction of the annual account in the three different alternatives.

I media har internationella kunskapsmätningar uppmärktsamamts och visat att Sveriges elever har presterat sämre över tid i specifikt en internationell kunskapsmätning, Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA. I och med att resultaten har fått en negativ inverkan på skolan är det intressant att studera internationella undersökningar. Syftet med studien är att synliggöra varför internationella undersökningar genomförs, motivering till ämnesval och orsaker till elevers resultat i främst två undersökningar, PISA och International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, ICCS. Följande frågeställningar genomsyrar undersökningen:Vad är motiveringen till att internationella undersökningar ska genomföras?Hur motiveras ämnesvalet som testas i dem internationella undersökningarna?Vilka orsaker tar rapporterna upp till elevernas resultat i PISA och ICCS?För att besvara ovanstående frågeställningar används en litteraturstudie för att analysera fyra av skolverkets rapporter.

The intention of this essay is to study the Swedish General Staff as a learning organisation during the period of 1914-1918 based on the theoretical work developed by the philosopher Bertil Rolf. Previous international research on the Prussian/German General Staff has shown that it is considered to be the first learning organisation in history. The Swedish General Staff was based on the German General Staff model and the focus of this study is to compare the development the tactics in Germany and Sweden regarding defence and attack in trench warfare. The questions are: How were the possibilities for gathering and analysing informa-tion affected by the war? Which conclusions were made for trench warfare in Swedish conditions? What experiences from the war and exercises in Swedish army were implemented in manuals and training?The conclusion of the study is that the Swedish General Staff was functioning as a learning organisation during the WWI through the ability to follow the international development, mainly in the Central Powers, and by modifying the experiences to the prevailing Swedish strategic and tactical conditions.

Interest deduction limitation rules have an important function as the regulations prevent the Swedish tax base to decrease. However, the restrictions must not be at the expense of the business environment. Interest deduction limitation rules that do not work in a satisfactory manner are likely to make Sweden a less favourable country to establish in. The first Swedish rules which were aimed to restrict interest deduction threaded into force in 2009. The rules were applicable to intercompany loans related to acquisitions of part ownership rights and the aim was to reduce tax avoidance through corporate group-loans. The rules proved to be ineffective since the avoidance continued and the Swedish rules could not tackle the problem.

There is no commonly accepted definition of a business method. It ought to consist of a method or a process of doing business. Business methods constitutes a broad category of patents, it is hard to tell exactly what can be interpreted in to the term. Most of the world's legal systems have made an exception from patentability for business methods. In the USA the exception was abolished in a case 1998.

The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent the senior level Swedish school can be viewed as supporting, or counteracting, a colonial discourse that legitimizes global and national injustices. The study is executed through a discourse analysis of five textbooks in social science for senior level Swedish schools.Using elements from Foucault and Edward Said a theoretical framework is constructed, in which a colonial discourse is perceived as structured around four clusters of ideas, namely (i) the use of dichotomies, (ii) the concept of progress and civilization, (iii) the construction of -we- as synonymous with (ii), and (iv) the construction of -the others- as the opposite of (ii) and, therefore, the opposite of -us-.The results show that a colonial discourse is still highly present in the textbooks, in that the texts are structured around dichotomies such as tradition/modernity and democracy/dictatorship. Sweden and the Western world are perceived as closely associated with democracy, freedom, and modernity, whereas -the others- of the world are being associated with e.g. poverty, conflict, tradition, and ignorance. -The others- within Sweden, i.e.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the implications and challenges of intercultural communication. An in-depth study was performed of the perspectives from people who work within an international organization. How they experience cultural differences and how they handle them, in particular when it comes to communication. Also, their perceptions of communicative competence were explored. The study was carried out at Svalorna India Bangladesh, at the Swedish office in Lund.

Despite the fact that the issue has been discussed for several decades, there are still no rules in Sweden mandating political parties and candidates to disclose received donations. Because of this lack of transparency, Sweden is not fulfilling some of its international obligations and has fallen behind in the international trend to increase the transparency of election campaign finance. The lack of disclosure rules in Sweden has led to extensive criticism, most notably from the Council of Europe´s group of states against corruption, Greco, who criticized Sweden in light of the guidelines on the subject from the Council of Europe. At this writing, a new proposal for disclosure rules is being prepared at the Department of Justice, DoJ. The proposal is to be presented in spring 2013.